Holiday Hell

I lived it this evening. It actually took one hour to get out of the parking lot of the Fox Run Mall because the traffic was so insane. Why in the world was I at the mall 3 days before Christmas at the end of the business day? Because The Girl needed to buy presents for her friends. It was a little bit bad getting into the mall around 3:30. It was insanity trying to get out an hour later. 

And somehow, I seem to find myself in that position every year because I think, "Oh, it's early enough in the day for me to just run in and get that little whatever it is I need to pick up without too much trouble." It's like a roach motel. Easy to get into and impossible to escape! 

Anything to Save a Buck

Last spring the local school board voted to "privatize" custodial services at the elementary and middle schools in order to save $185,000. This meant that staff that had been employed in the schools for years and sometimes decades were let go. The new company, UGL UNICCO, which is based out of state, took over the janitorial duties about one month ago. Yesterday two of their employees were arrested for smoking pot in the middle school parking lot last Thursday night. It turns out one of those employees had been arrested for drug possession previously, but it didn't show up during his pre-employment screening.
Now the school superintendent is outraged and calling for drug screening of all UGL UNICCO employees. I'm really not surprised. I think they would have been better off keeping the staff they had. I know some of those people had nieces, nephews, kids and grandkids in these schools and they would not pull that kind of crap. But God forbid we employ people with a vested interest in the community when we could save a few bucks by hiring some outside corporation willing to make a low ball offer.
Man. The world really sucks lately.

Rant on the Economy

I don't get it. We're spending $10 billion a month for the war in Iraq and now the Treasury Secretary is saying the government is going to need to spend "hundreds of billions" of dollars to deal with the financial crisis and to bail out all these corporations that fucked up big time. None of these "solutions" is going to help out the shareholders of any of these companies. They (we?) are out of luck. I'm not exactly sure who the bailouts will help, but my guess is that the CEOs and other executives don't need to worry too much about losing their homes.
And who really pays for it? We do. With our tax dollars.
I thought that deregulating and giving reign to free market forces meant that going out of business was supposed to be a natural end result of businesses that chose poor policies and practices. Apparently government bailouts for major fuckups is okay, but government regulations that could prevent this mess in the first place are bad. That seems to be the logic we have been operating under.
Yeah, definitely time for a change.

And I'm Not Going to Spend $48 for One That Just Sort of Fits

I went bra shopping today. Why it takes 2.5 hours, three stores and about three dozen different styles tried on to end up with two bras that kind of fit okay is beyond my comprehension. I'm really not that oddly shaped.

On With The Show

The power cord to my MacBook Pro bit the dust this weekend. At first I thought the cat had gnawed on it, but it was actually burning up from the inside. I noticed the computer wasn't charging properly on Thursday night. On Friday I started looking around on Apple's site and discovered that this particular power supply has flaked out on a lot of people. I called Apple and told them about the problem and a new cord is on its way to me. (Thanks Marvelous Boyfriend for purchasing the 3 year Apple Care when you got me the machine!) I kept using the cord into Saturday, pushing and mushing it around so it would connect and continue to charge. But once the smoke started coming out and I pulled the plug with a big fanfare of spark, I realized the jig was up. Oh well. The new cord should be here soon.
On another note-- I'm getting really tired of the cleaning lady at school getting annoyed with me for showing up to my office while she's working on the floor. She was in here today when I arrived and said "Don't you get here at 8 on Tuesdays and Thursdays?" implying that I shouldn't be here when I was on this lovely Monday morning. I reminded her it was last semester when I had to be in extra early (7:30 or so) on those days but that I am in everyday at 7:45. It's my frigging office! Don't make me feel like coming in early to work is a problem.

Winter Blahs

For the past five or six years I have felt sick for the last couple weeks of December through the first couple weeks of January. The first year it happened I thought the nausea, dizziness and fatigue meant I might be pregnant. The next couple of years I thought I was coming down with the flu. Now I just recognize that I'm going to feel like crap when the days are short. It's probably the expression of an instinct that wants me to hunker down and hibernate. That, however, is not really a possibility. So instead I'll just nap when I can and wait for it to be over.

I Hate "Fall Back"*

Screw it. Here's the minutiae.
Once in a while I decide to change things up and do my grocery shopping at Shaws rather than Hannaford, my usual haunt. In general I think Hannaford has better produce and I'm used to it, so I can get in and out of there with relatively more efficiency than Shaws. But today I decided on a change of pace and went to Shaws. And was reminded of what is probably the real reason why I usually chose not to shop there-- their shopping carts give me really strong static shocks. Audible snapping electrical-sounding shocks. Even when I hold on to the plastic handle cover, the shocks sneak up underneath my fingers and get me there.
Snap! Ow! Snap! Ow! roll roll roll Snap! Oww!
That's no way to shop.
So yeah, the all registers open from 4pm-7pm thing is really good, but unless it's a quick enough trip that I can carry my purchases in one of those hand baskets, I'm not shopping at Shaws anymore.

* I realize the post has nothing to do with the title. I just thought I'd announce that I am also not pleased that it is DARK out at 5pm now. And it'll only worse until the holiday season is done with.

I Hate Pretentious Japanophiles: Part 7 Million

Sushi for Two - New York Times
Oh, let's be pretentious and stupid! Obviously this guy hasn't taken check of the Japanese sushi restaurant industry in the last 20 years because in this article he is completely ignoring the proliferation of cheap kaiten sushi restaurants (the conveyor belt places) that have brought sushi to the level of the masses in Japan. I suppose while we're discussing enforcing cultural correctness overseas, the Japanese really ought to do something about their interpretation of ice cream and pizza. ("Ideal taste of sea goodness and mayonnaise" anyone?)

Blah

My summer vacation has started and I'm already catching shit from my family and questioning my own self-worth because of it. Good times, huh?
The deal is that I teach during the academic school year and also translate on a freelance basis. Freelance basis means sometimes I have too much work coming in and I have to turn down offers and sometimes nothing's coming in and I could, theoretically, just kick back and relax and enjoy my free time.
Except...
Except I don't just kick back and enjoy the down time. I spend the down time wondering if I should go back to school for yet another degree in order to "change careers" or whether I really should, as my father urges every time he sees me, figure out how to contact Theo Epstein and try to get a gig an an interpreter for the Red Sox even though I couldn't give a shit about baseball and abhor the thought of commuting to Boston, never mind traveling for a job. And then there's my sister, who is now gainfully employed by dad after years of slackerdom, and her not-so-subtle contemptuous tone of "oh, that must be nice" when I tell her I'm currently not working on any translation at the moment and am done with school for the year. Well, excuse me for having skills that let me work freelance and also for having received my settlement check from the divorce, which along with the payment checks now coming in for the work I kicked ass on last month and the understanding and generosity of my wonderful boyfriend who values my contributions to our home and family even if they aren't all measured in dollars, lessens the immediate need to pull in a paycheck at the moment.
But, really, I know I should just say screw them and enjoy this opportunity to slow down and enjoy life. I figured out a long time ago that "high-powered" is not what I want to be. I love to teach. Time flies when I'm in the classroom and it doesn't feel so much like work. Translation isn't quite as much fun as teaching, but I like the freedom of working freelance. So what's the problem? I don't make a ton of money so that means I'm "wasting my potential"? What if my potential to be happy with the way my life is now means more to me than my potential to bust my ass to impress my family?

Blahentines Day

This was not the day I expected it to be. Yes, it was Valentine's Day. Yes, we had a big storm and schools were canceled and everyone hunkered down and stayed home. My normally bright, shiny, happy girl was sick and camped out on the couch all day long. I shoveled my driveway out twice and later saw it plowed out twice. I spent most of the day at the kitchen table working on a type of translation I haven't done in years. And now I remember why. Translating notes in computer code is boring as hell. It requires extreme visual attention, but not a lot of writing skill. I wouldn't call it brainless, but it lacks the challenge and satisfaction of turning out a finely polished sentence.
I hate it when the girl is sick. I hate that I had to actually spend several hours wondering how to take my sick girl out in the middle of a raging snow storm so she could go to her dad's house due to the stupid custody schedule. (He only lives 5 minutes away and for various reasons, including both the weather and her throwing up several times during the day, we didn't actually head out until the end of the afternoon, but still, why should either of us have to worry about that and why does it all have to be communicated through email and not the phone?) Not enough sleep. No nap today. I felt bad eating when I knew my girl was too sick to consider it. Ass glued to the chair while my eyes bugged out over pages of code. Shoveling was actually a welcome break. At least I got some fresh air and exercise. It'll all get better. I just need a nap, I think.